Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

canalys.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 187 posts

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#171

Post by IkmoIkmo »

stefan_ wrote: post #125
godzillabrennus wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars. Absolutely no doubt they need to be in that industry.

Cars are pretty firmly in iPhone slow growth territory. If anything we expect to have less of them in the future.

That, plus car manufacturing is a 10% margin business, Apple is closer to 30%. There's not a ton of money to be made, particularly because the growth in the car industry that will exist will mostly be in getting e.g. Indians to drive, that'll have even lower margins and isn't Apple's target group.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#172

Post by simonh »

ajross wrote: post #100
Johnie wrote: post #90

See: * Bass Diffusion Model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_diffusion_model * Diffusion of Innovation Model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations These models have been fairly accurate in forecasting diffusion of innovation. While many of the innovators have started to exit and move on, this leaves the imitators around in a slowing market. Apple has been surprisingly good at being the forefront…

> Apple has already moved onto the next technological innovation: Apple Watch and wearables. Seriously? Are there any number at all to show that wearables are a growth bet at this point? The Apple Watch (which entered the market three years ago !) has had an uptake at least an order of magnitude lower than the iPad, the last "next technological innovation" that turned out not to be. Tablets were hot for a while, but…

Really? People are still saying Apple is in need of being 'saved'? Wow. I wish I was in as much trouble as them.

If it's not better than the most successful consumer product in human history, it's not worth bothering with? Apple is now the most profitable watch company in the world, they sell twice as many iPads as laptops, and sell more of them than even the biggest selling laptop company sells laptops, and their ASP is still going up.

Sure. Failed products. What's the point of even trying.

> expected downturn in smartphone sales.

Which may be a problem some day, but while sals are flat-ish, even their Phone ASPs are still going up. So while growth may not be as rapid as in the past, they'll just have to console themselves by showering in firehoses of cash flow instead.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#173

Post by walshemj »

reaperducer wrote: post #42
cs702 wrote: post #16

Wow, a 21% year-over-year drop... and this makes the fourth consecutive quarter of annual declines (in the previous three quarters, shipments had dropped -3%, -5%, and -14% year-over-year). A hard landing indeed. The implications for phone makers are unpleasant: price competition is going to intensify and profit margins, which are already thin, will get squeezed even more and might even turn negative. (Only Apple, wh…

>Only Apple, which makes exclusively high-end devices for style-conscious, less-price-sensitive consumers, This is a very tired cliche, and untrue to anyone who's ever seen any of the hundreds of ads where new iPhones are available for $0 from most carriers.

Yes but with a huge monthly rental that means you pay a lot more than buying the phone ought right.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#174

Post by ksec »

bruceb wrote: post #15

Almost any $200+ phone made since 2015 has a pretty good camera, screen, speed for most people. Why upgrade when what you have is good enough? One used to check out gizmodo/engadget when a new phone came out but seems not anymore as "the new" is only incremental.

$200+? 2015? Well it kind of depends what you mean by good enough.

Out of all the Phone I tried, including latest Android, only the iPhone X came close to being fast enough, as in super responsive. I think iOS 11 actually slows things down for everyone, the whole OS is slower then iOS 10, even on iPhone X, which we can't test with iOS 10.

I really wish we could start to focus on Latency Computing. I want things to have a responsive output, or reaction to my input in less then 16ms.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#175

Post by megaman22 »

ksec wrote: post #174
bruceb wrote: post #15

Almost any $200+ phone made since 2015 has a pretty good camera, screen, speed for most people. Why upgrade when what you have is good enough? One used to check out gizmodo/engadget when a new phone came out but seems not anymore as "the new" is only incremental.

$200+? 2015? Well it kind of depends what you mean by good enough. Out of all the Phone I tried, including latest Android, only the iPhone X came close to being fast enough, as in super responsive. I think iOS 11 actually slows things down for everyone, the whole OS is slower then iOS 10, even on iPhone X, which we can't test with iOS 10. I really wish we could start to focus on Latency Computing. I want things to ha…

Run Android then. If you need an iPhoneX to run your mobile operating system, then it's an unforgivably bloated pig. An iPhone X is beefier than some workstations I've used as my main gaming and development rigs in the not so distant past.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#176

Post by microtonal »

ksec wrote: post #174
bruceb wrote: post #15

Almost any $200+ phone made since 2015 has a pretty good camera, screen, speed for most people. Why upgrade when what you have is good enough? One used to check out gizmodo/engadget when a new phone came out but seems not anymore as "the new" is only incremental.

$200+? 2015? Well it kind of depends what you mean by good enough. Out of all the Phone I tried, including latest Android, only the iPhone X came close to being fast enough, as in super responsive. I think iOS 11 actually slows things down for everyone, the whole OS is slower then iOS 10, even on iPhone X, which we can't test with iOS 10. I really wish we could start to focus on Latency Computing. I want things to ha…

I am an iPhone user, but did a detour into Android a couple of years ago. Among other phones I had a Moto G (first or second generation) that was probably around 160 Euro. It was very fast and responsive. I didn't feel/see much difference outside games, compared to the Nexus 4/5 and Moto X 2013/14 that were released at the same time.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#177

Post by wilsonnb »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #142
supertrope wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would Apple improve ease of use or add high tech functionality?

Self driving luxury cars. Apple is second to none in focusing on design.

Second to no tech companies, sure, but Apple would presumably be competing with companies like Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes which are almost definitely better at designing luxury cars than Apple.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#178

Post by ksec »

diminish wrote: post #5

After relentless growth we're about to arrive at a plateauing smartphone market. I wish I could read insights from experts on what to expect in coming years in smartphone market in light of similar markets which entered a no growth zone. Specifically what will happen to prices, market shares , unit sales, pace of innovation, competition, international growth, developer ecosystems. Anyone?

Apple, as this cycle happens, are now preparing to push up the price in the top end. Likely $949 for updated iPhone X, and $1099 for iPhone X Plus.

Then the rumours, for a Mid Range iPhone, designed specifically with China in mind, starts at ~$700.

Much like the economy that see a shrinking size of middle class, I think the market is going to two segment, sub ~$300 and ~$600+. Take for example, the average selling price of Xiaomi Smartphone is less then $130. That is from a company that has 10 - 15% of marketshare in China. My bet is that the top 4, representing 70%+ market shares are mostly concentrated in the sub ~$300 price group.

Another point worth mentioning, there are 1.4 Billion people in China and only ~800M are Internet users, 90%+ of them through mobile. There is still another 600M to go, as they rapidly transform into a cashless society. The same to India.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#179

Post by wilsonnb »

larkeith wrote: post #161
Eyght wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using the same phone for almost 4 years now (oneplus one). It came with 3gb ram and 64gb storage and cost about $300, vat included. There are two tells that I'm using an old phone. The camera is really bad compared to the current ones, and it doesn't have any biometric unlock.

I'm still running my Galaxy S5 from when it first came out, and I've not found any problems with it yet - the camera is good enough for anything I need it for, and the battery can still run a good 4-6 hours active use. While it doesn't have biometric unlock, I would avoid any new phone that did like the plague regardless - I like having a minimal amount of security, thank you very much.

I don't understand why you avoid a phone with biometric unlock. It's an optional feature that you don't have to enable.

Re: China smartphone market suffers hard-landing, shipments decline 21% in Q1 2018

#180

Post by bufferoverflow »

segmondy wrote: post #143
bruceb wrote: post #15

Almost any $200+ phone made since 2015 has a pretty good camera, screen, speed for most people. Why upgrade when what you have is good enough? One used to check out gizmodo/engadget when a new phone came out but seems not anymore as "the new" is only incremental.

Well said, I've rebuilt my nexus 5 (3 times) It was once driven over by a car and I swapped the innards. The motherboard died and I swapped that out. Then I replaced the battery. I've a backup nexus 5 and spare battery waiting. I want to get my money's worth. Upgrading every 2/3 yrs is nuts with how much these cost. I'm pushing for every 6 yrs unless a device truly revolutionary is released. No such device has been r…

You should look into Nexus 5X. The camera is fantastic, if you care about that.
Post reply on HN